A place where the elders, ministers, and ministry leaders of the Southeastern Church of Christ can share how God is working in their lives as they strive to serve the church that He has placed in their care.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Have you been confronted with or read
the above question?I have.Usually the question concerns some area that
is contrary to Biblical teaching – some sin; and someone who chooses to be
involved. The question is usually meant to put us Christians on the defensive
[implying that “You aren’t perfect either”]. It’s often meant to be a
“stopper”; to be a “gotcha” question.Well,
it should not be.

Recently in our church study of Romans
the topic of “judging” has come up.My
wife, Lou Ann, and I have done a fairly extensive study of the Biblical use of
the word “judge”.This is because of its
use in Romans plus the question this article raises – “Who are you to judge
me?”Before I deal with “judging”
further, let me share an analogy - the Biblical use of another word quite
familiar to you –-> LOVE.I imagine you are all familiar with the fact
that in the original New Testament (written in Greek) there are several
different words for love – all that have distinctly different meanings.This is in contrast to our limited English
where you can ‘love’ everything from pizza, to football, to snow, to your
children or parents.My comparison is
that it is the same for the word “judge”.When you realize this, it may help clear up some of the meanings of
“judge” that you read in the New Testament in addition to knowing how to better
answer people who “hit you” with the question I’ve raised in the title.

No, I don’t plan to bore you with an
exhaustive word study with the specific Greek words and all their
meanings.I’ll simply tell you that my
study shows three different Greek words for the verb “to judge”.[There are other words for a person who is a
judge (noun form) and still others for the word “judgment”].The three verb forms have quite varied
meanings.Some of these meanings
are:to condemn;to
sentence; to form an opinion; to conclude; to determine;
to think; to examine; to discriminate; to discern; to recognize ------If you are following me at all, you can
readily see quite a difference in the first two meanings and the others
listed.To give a couple of
examples:“If someone is determined in a
court of law to be guilty of murder, they are “condemned” and “sentenced”.On the other hand; if you are ‘judging’ art
work in a contest, you ‘judge’ one to be the winner – you ‘determine’; you
‘form an opinion’; you ‘conclude’; etc.This
has nothing to do with ‘condemning’.

Now to get back to the question, “Who
are you to judge me?”We need to make
it clear that we are NOT condemning orsentencing the person [we
know that is not up to us – it’s in
God’s hands].What we are doing is
recognizing, concluding, discerning that, “YES”: they are a _________ or have
committed _______.You can fill in the
blanks.Again, we need to specifically
tell people that “NO”; we are not condemning or sentencing them; but “YES”, we
recognize what they are or what they’ve done and we do not agree. Further, we
should say that, “My Bible tells me that this is wrong.”

I don’t think that I’m “splitting hairs”
here with the quite different meanings of “judge”.Of course many times the people we’re talking
to may not accept what we say and probably have rationalized the Bible’s
statements or dismissed them all together.But don’t let our title’s question put you on the defensive.I hope this rather erudite article gives you
a better insight and understanding of “judging.”

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

There are some things in life that simply
demand that we face them with more seriousness. Taxes come to mind. Fail to
take them seriously, blow them off and you’ll find yourself in trouble with a
little group known as the IRS. How about dealing with a major illness? People
who are told they have cancer generally buckle down into a very thought-out and
careful treatment regimen. Even something as simple as trying to reach a
personal goal needs to be faced with seriousness if one is to truly reach
beyond themselves.

In 2009, I made a personal commitment to ride my bike 100 miles in one day. I
made that commitment in the spring, and the plan was to do the ride before the
end of the summer. I’m not sure how many of you have ever ridden a bike a
hundred miles, but it isn’t easy. It takes training, preparation, planning and
commitment. I had to think through how I was going to approach the training,
and build up my body’s endurance over time. Additionally, I had to plan a
route, work out a support system for drinks and food for the day, and develop a
strategy for how I would ride the distance. It took serious thought.

I think as we delve into the subject of Christianity, it is fair to say that we
should enter into the topic with a serious mind. Many in the USA today often
seem to waltz in and out of church like it was going to the movies. Is it
entertaining enough? Is it too stiff or too loose? Are the seats comfortable?
Do I like the preacher?

Others seem to think they are Christians by
genetics. I was born in America, so I’m a Christian.I’m not Jewish or Islamic, so I’m a Christian…right?

Whoa! Not so fast, partner. I think maybe we need to take a serious look at
Christianity. It isn’t something to take lightly. After all, a person died to
get this thing going and many others have died along the way trying to be
faithful to the God who gave His Son. Back in the early days of the Way of
Christ, folks would be thrown into prison, flogged, fed to lions, used as human
torches, or hung on a cross simply for professing a faith in Christ. This was
back before a cross was a piece of jewelry. Rather, it was an instrument of a
torturous death, capital punishment.

Christianity is serious business.

Maybe you’ve just started looking into this Christianity stuff. That’s great.Be serious about it.Investigate.
Look at the details of scripture, and don’t simply take another person’s word
for what it says. Study it for yourself. In the Bible, in the Book of Acts,
there are a whole group of people from a village called Berea that are called
noble because they didn’t take the Apostle Paul’s word for what was true.
Rather, they listened to him, and then they researched it for themselves to see
if it was true. (Acts 17:10-12) Follow their lead. Don’t take
mine or anyone else’s word as gospel. Check out the details for yourself.

If you are a Christian, then my question to you is: Just how seriously do you take
your faith?

Is it just another facet of your complicated life? Or, is it your driving
force, your source of strength, and your hope for your future? When you read
the scriptures, do you allow it to impact you, or does it roll off like some
nice sayings from an old book? Do you read the scriptures?

I wonder what would happen if Christians began to once again take the Bible
seriously. What if Christians everywhere began to really love their neighbors
as themselves? Or, they began to consider the needs of other people before they
considered their own? Hmmm.Would our
culture be changing us or would we be changing our culture?

What about you and me? Can we begin to take a serious look at Bible passages? Are
we letting them impact our daily walk?

Let’s take a look at a few verses with our new
“serious” perspective. Let’s consider what “serious” looks like in this
sampling.

Matthew 6:31-34So do not worry, saying,
‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all
these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first
his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as
well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about
itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Take a few moments to consider…if we are really serious…what does it look like
to seek the kingdom of God FIRST? How would priorities change? How would
lifestyles change? Are you doing this already?Or, would a serious look drive a serious change?

I John 3:16-18This is how we know what
love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our
lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother
in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear
children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

What would it look like if we as individual Christians stopped talking about
loving others and actually began to earnestly do something about it? Bob Harper
from the Biggest Loser yelled at a competitor a few seasons ago that she should
“Stop talking and just do it!” I think that is what the Apostle John is
saying. Stop talking about feeding the hungry, and get them some food. Stop
talking about …you name it…and get it done.

What would it look like if we all did that?

Romans 12:2Do not conform to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

As I bring this article to a conclusion, let me just say it again. Christianity
is serious business. We are talking about things like death, redemption,
salvation, and eternity. Sin is a real thing and it has consequences—both now
and beyond.Still, the heart of the
story is how God loves us.It’s all
about having a relationship with him.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

The Pharisees asked Jesus what was the most
important commandment and he replied in Matthew 22, “You must Love the Lord
your God with all your heart and soul, and all your mind.And the second is equally important: Love
your neighbor as yourself.”Love is the
most powerful force in the entire world.I Corinthians 13 tells us that if we had enough faith to move a
mountain, but do not love others, it means nothing.

I cannot think of a better example of love than the
love a parent has for their child.Someone once said that having a child is like ripping out your heart and
letting it walk around on the earth.They literally are a part of us.It’s the kind of love that fills our heart and soul and makes us feel
their pain.

When you have a child that is hurting and you are
not able to make the pain go away, it is incredibly difficult for a parent to
endure.Jack Canfield, one of the
co-authors of the book Chicken Soup for the Soul relayed the following true story
about this kind of love.

There was a 26 year old mother in Phoenix, AZ who
woke up one night to the cry of her son.She went to his bedroom to help soothe her little boy.She tried everything: Tylenol, ice packs,
heating pads, massage, rocking him but nothing worked.So, distraught at 7:30 the next morning, she
took him to the emergency room.They ran
a series of tests only to discover that he had a terminal illness and maybe had
three to six months to live.

The mother believed that everybody should have a
dream and that everyone should do whatever is possible to make that dream come
true. She felt that you should ask people to support you in making your dream
come true and not be humbled, embarrassed or ashamed by that because we all
have a need to be supported by others.So she went to her young son named Robert, she called him Bopsy and
asked him, “Bopsy, what did you want to be when you grow up, what is your
dream?You are six years old and your
time appears short, and it didn’t really cross my mind before, but I wanted to
know what you wanted to be.”Bopsy said,
“Mom, more than anything I wanted to be a fireman.”

She went to the Make A Wish foundation and she told
them about her son’s dream and they went to the Phoenix Fire Department and
they met a guy there named Fireman Bob who had the same name as Bopsy and they
asked him if he could help out.He said,
“Sure”.The mother said, “If you could
just give him a ride in the fire truck around the hospital one morning maybe.”
He said, “Look lady, we’ll do better than that, with the chief’s permission we
are going to make Bopsy a fireman for the whole day.We make the uniforms right here in Phoenix so
we will take his measurements and get a real uniform made and it will have the
yellow rain jacket and pants and boots and a real hat with the insignia of the
Phoenix Fire Department.”It turns out
that when he checked with the chief, the chief said, “Let’s make him Chief of
the Phoenix Fire Department.”

About a week later they picked him up at 6:30 in the
morning and put him on the back of one of those hook and ladder trucks where he
could steer the wheel on the back with the help of another fireman.They went down to the station and that day
there were three fire calls in Phoenix and Bopsy got to go on all three and he
was really excited.They were not
condescending to him in any way; they literally made him chief of the
department.The chief would say’ “Look
Bopsy this is what we normally would do, we would bring some fireman over here,
and direct the helicopter other there, and cordon off that area over there, but
you are the chief, what do you think?”Bopsy would pause briefly and say “Sounds good. Do it.”

So he got to ride in the fire chief’s car and the
different fire trucks, the paramedics van, and even in the police chief’s car
that day.And probably the most exciting
part was the camera crews that showed up as they always do for fires and they wondered
what this little kid was doing giving directions to everyone.So they interviewed him and filmed him and he
got to see himself later that day on the 5:00 news, and 7:00 news and 10:00
news and 11:00 news.He was on all the
channels and he was very excited.His
dream had come true; he got to be a real fireman.

Well, several months later all of his vital signs
did begin to fade as the doctors had predicted.The hospital believed in the hospice movement where the basic concept is
that no-one should ever die alone.So
his mom started calling family members saying, “We don’t think Bopsy is going
to make it through the night and we think you ought to come down and be with
him by his bedside to transition with him.”Then she remembered the fire department, so she called up the chief and said
“Chief, do you remember Bopsy?”The
chief said “Sure, I remember Bopsy, he’s a great kid.” She said, “Well, we
think tonight is the night he’s not going to be with us any longer and he’s going
to make his transition and we wondered if you could come down and maybe just
send a fireman to be by his bedside in uniform to remind him of that special
day he had.”The chief said, “Look here,
we’ll do better than that.We are going
to be there in six of seven minutes.You
are going to here sirens and see flashing lights.Would you go on the intercom and tell
everyone at the hospital that everything is okay and there is no fire because
we do not want to scare anyone.But we
want them to know that the fire department is coming to pay final respects to
one of its finest members.”

Six minutes later the fire truck appeared and a
ladder extended up to Bopsy’s third floor open window that the chief had asked
them to open.14 firemen and 2 firewomen
climbed up that ladder and into that room and with the parent’s permission they
picked up this little boy and they started to rock him.At that moment, Biopsy looked up at the chief
and said, “Chief, does this mean I’m a real fireman?”And the chief looked down and said, “Bopsy,
absolutely, you are one of the finest firemen we have ever had.”And with that, he closed his eyes and made
his transition.

My prayer today is for God to touch your heart in
2016 to love others more deeply and to help someone realize their dream.Praise God for his Love!!